Seraphim (8 page)

Duncan was one of those people, the impatient kind. And in the nearly nine years Juanita had spent in his house—the thousands of hours spent feeding him and his family, taking care of his daughter, washing his dirty drawers and cleaning up his messes—he’d never once taken those few extra minutes to get to know her.

Although, she had to admit,
her
first impression of Señor Duncan was not exactly fleeting. He was a man with secrets.
Crippling secrets. From the moment their eyes first met, she’d more than just intuited this: she literally beheld it like she would a monsoon-driven rain nettling her cheeks. She’d kept those mistrusts stored in the cellar of her soul; locked up and preserved like award-winning jams.

Her mission in life was to safeguard his daughter whom she had vowed to protect more than thirty-five years earlier, at the tender age of sixteen. Of course, she’d never informed the McNeils of this. She was a lot of things, but
loco
wasn’t one of them.

Those many years ago, in the tiny town of Chinipas, Mexico, the Virgin herself had appeared from the fourth pinewood pew in Our Lady of Guadalupe, a disintegrating church in the center of what was her equally decaying birthplace. The Radiant Mother had bestowed upon her a revelation of such earthly cataclysm that had she not already been on her knees, it would have surely driven her there.

In this apocalyptic vision, broken glass oceans issued forth the legions of hell. Multitudes of winged demons swarmed out from the gigantic cracks and fissures that craggily traversed to all horizons. And beneath these aerial armies lay a child, so terribly alone on that vast expanse of glass; the only casualty in the War of wars. But this potent metaphor was not lost on Juanita, for she understood that this seemingly lone victim, in truth, epitomized all mankind.

Weeping, curled like a fetus at the base of the altar, she then received her instructions from the Blessed Mother.

Her appointed mission was not messianic, was not to warn the backsliding masses to repent, that Armageddon was fast upon them. It was a more narrowly focused one, to look after a little girl named Amy, to keep her out of harm’s way. Be her sentinel.

The Marian apparition then changed into the image of that chosen girl, one aged ten or twelve, with a sweet, beautifully innocent face. The theory behind this designed manifestation, Juanita felt, was so that she would recognize the girl when finally confronted with her. This had shaken her considerably and continued to for a great long time, as she had not wanted her memory entrusted to what was obviously going to be a custodial responsibility of biblical proportions.

From then on, up until the glorious day when she and Amy finally found one another, Juanita had delighted in daily self-flagellation. Merciless throughout all those years, she’d whipped herself with popular morality tales, aided to deeper depths with the honed, stalwart blades of religious parables, then deeper still by the enduring, perennially whet sabers of scriptural parallels until, finally, her psychological state of mind had become so horrendously avulsed, her soul so variegated with the scars and welts of self-pity that the Devil himself might have convalesced her wounds with a salve to rival Heaven’s own had he to endure even one more second of her insufferable mewling.

The most recurring Bible story, she recalled, had been that of the Pharaoh’s daughter, when she’d found Moses on the river, floating in an arc of bulrushes. Juanita (her appointed mission having felt for so long punitive by comparison) had always been quick to remind herself, though, that there was a very sound and legitimate reason why
her
appointed package couldn’t have been sent to her as effortlessly. That reason being her own sinful nature. Oh, sure, the Pharaoh’s daughter had been full of sin, too. But that was a time long before the birth of Christ, and it just went to figure that God overlooked a lot more back then.

It wasn’t until many years later when her searching was ended; when her employment agency called and asked if she’d like to be interviewed for a housekeeping position. That one phone call and she’d been relieved from the relentless task of searching for that child’s face wherever she went. Oh, how she’d searched so diligently, so devotedly, all those years.

One simple phone call, but hardly routine. Received at seven a.m. on the seventh day of the seventh month.

Later that same evening, she’d interviewed with the McNeil family. During introductions, she’d learned that the child’s name was, indeed, Amy. Upon that affirmation, she began showering the poor thing with gushing affection. It had taken all she had to keep from kneeling before the bundled form and weeping.

It wasn’t long into the informal interview when she sensed Señor Duncan’s fear of her, and it was likewise during this time that her distrust of him was born. She’d since learned that Rachel had the “final say” in the matter, and had hired her despite Duncan’s protests. She’d also since learned that when Rachel McNeil had the “final say,” God Himself couldn’t have carved the pronouncement any deeper in stone.

But now she didn’t know what to think of Señor McNeil; hadn’t for a good year or so. He was a mysterious and certainly troubled man. Of this she was sure. But evil? Evil enough to do his own daughter harm? She now doubted it. Something had begun many months back to persuade her otherwise. Nothing tangible, nothing that he’d said or done, only a nagging feeling that maybe she’d been spending far too much time and energy suspecting her employer. The deep, troubling secrets she intuited from the man, she had to finally admit, were probably not worthy of her longstanding suspicions.

No, it was now arguable that Señor Duncan was not Satan incognito. He was just an asshole with issues.

She continued to pace, driven by fear. Earlier that morning, something had occurred within her, a sense of heightened alert, as if someone had climbed to the crow’s nest of her mind, waving frantically to the rest of her being, her soul, signaling the approach of doom on the horizon.

Polishing her rosary, she mumbled, “
Va haber un desmadre
.”

Yes, all hell was going to break loose, she was sure. And soon.

*****

Juanita continued to pace.

Rachel, no longer intrigued with her hands, was leafing through a two-year-old edition of
People
magazine when a young man in a blue and white uniform walked up to her. He was one of the paramedics she’d seen earlier in the ER. He was still wearing a troubled face.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but are you the mother of the little girl we transported from Jefferson Elementary?”

“Yes,” Rachel said, “I am.”

“May I talk with you?” He glanced nervously around. “Privately?”

“Keep the chair warm for me, Juanita,” she said, grabbing her purse.

The paramedic placed a gentle hand on Rachel’s elbow and led her, somewhat urgently, into an elevator.

Descending from the seventh floor, neither spoke. By the time they’d reached the lobby, Rachel was surprised the medic hadn’t chewed his lower lip bloody.

The air was still hot despite the sun’s position, which teetered like a steel orange on the Pacific Ocean. It was the last week of September, and was promising to be the start of one of the hottest and muggiest autumns this city had ever seen. But LA wasn’t the only place suffering third degree burns. Nearly the whole country was in the midst of a tenacious heat wave.

He pulled a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket. Offering a cigarette to Rachel, he said, “Nasty habit, huh?”

“What’s this all about?” she said, accepting. Dave Schilling was stenciled on his name tag.

“I’m not crazy,” he whispered. “And my partner won’t back me up. He refuses to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Rachel said “Talk about what?”

Dave lit her cigarette. “Ya know, I’ve seen some bizarre things in this city,” he continued in a low voice. “A car wreck so bad there were intestines splattered across a billboard thirty yards from impact. A hobo whose face was eaten off by two Chihuahuas as he lay passed out in an alley. A crazy old woman who choked to death on her pet hamster.” He stared at the noisy interstate that ran adjacent to the hospital. He took a drag off his cigarette, inhaled deeply. “Shit,” he laughed nervously, “and we were able to save the hamster.”

She glanced sidelong at the medic. “Excuse me, but isn’t that just an urban legend?”

“No,” he said, “you’re confusing that with Richard Gere getting caught with a gerbil up his ass.
That’s
an urban legend.” He stared at her, nonplused. “Isn’t it?” Then he shrugged his shoulders and clucked. “Oh hell, lady, in this city, if it’s not one orifice, it’s another.”

“Name’s Rachel,” she said patiently. “And what do these experiences have to do with my daughter?”

He turned a pair of mystified eyes to her. “What I saw and heard today was totally unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.” He flicked his half-finished cigarette to the ground, crushed it beneath his shoe. “At one point while your daughter was inside the ambulance, she began…seizing. Nothing full blown, like a grand mal, just some minor shaking. Anyway, as I was holding her down, trying to listen to her heart and lung sounds, she grabbed hold of my stethoscope. The second she did, I heard the strangest voice. It was like I’d tapped into a kind of, of telepathic conversation between your daughter and...”

“And...?” Rachel nudged.

“And God,” he finally said. “I mean, the voice was so
out there
that it couldn’t have been…
human
.”

“And what did
He
say?” Rachel said. There was a genuineness, a sincerity about him that kept her from rushing back inside to find a pair of burly guys in white coats.

“It wasn’t a
He—
it was a
She
.”

Chalk up another one for women’s lib
, she thought. “Alright, what was
She
saying?”

“‘He knows where you’ve flown.’”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s what the voice kept saying, over and over. ‘He knows where you’ve flown.’”

“
Who
knows where
who’s
flown?”

Dave shrugged. “I was kind of hoping that you’d know, or at least have a hunch. You see, the reason I’m telling you this is because I interpreted it as a kind of warning. It didn’t necessarily sound like one, but I
felt
it was a warning.” He stared at his shoes. “Man, my ass is history if you talk to anybody about this.”

“My lips are sealed,” she promised. “You said it was a conversation. What was my daughter saying?”

“‘It hurts, it hurts.’ And she kept clawing at her back, too,” he said, demonstrating the awkward scratching, “as if something was really irritating it. Burning it, maybe.”

“That’s it?” Rachel said, as if that wasn’t enough.

“No,” he said, shakily lighting another cigarette. “Now comes the weird part.”

Rachel’s jaw actually dropped. “The
weird
part?”

“Just as we pulled up to the hospital, Kathy jumped—”

“Amy,” she corrected. “Her name is Amy.”

“Really?” David said, confused. “Her teacher said her name was Amy, too, but as we were getting her into the ambulance, your daughter told us quite lucidly—well, she insisted!—that her name was Kath—”

“I know, I know,” Rachel nodded pressingly, “but continue.”

“Well, she—Amy—jumped up from the pram just as we pulled to a stop in front of the ER. She placed both hands on one of the two rear windows of the ambulance and…and a picture appeared, a
moving
picture, as if the glass had somehow turned into a...” Slumping against the wall, he exhaled loudly. “You’re not buying any of this, are you?”

“I’m trying,” Rachel said. “What did you see in the window?”

“There was a man sitting in a chair. It was like I was looking right into his living room. He was busy with his hands. At first I thought he was crocheting, or something like that, but then he stood up, and in his hands was a set of wings. Like a prop, you know? Angel wings someone might make for a Christmas play? But they looked real enough. Too real. And they were big. Maybe from a swan? Anyway, the scene disappeared as we pulled her away from the doors. I only saw half his face.”

“Angel wings?”

“I know it sounds crazy, ma’am, but, on my mother’s grave I swear to you—”

“I believe you,” she said, surprising herself. Something about it made sense to her, though she hadn’t the vaguest idea why.

Or had she? Something swept through her just then, like a breath passing through her soul.

Now oblivious to everything around her, she searched desperately for that bit of salience, as resistive to the pull of recall as a bat is to daylight.
Dammit!
It was important; vitally so, she was sure. She had to remember.
Had to
. It had something to do with wings…

Angel wings.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” Dave said.

She had entered that vault where such memories lay stored and catalogued; was pulling desperately at the file drawers like an heir to a billion-dollar estate, searching for the lone key that would allow her entry into unimaginable wealth.

Then, as the last sliver of sun winked off the horizon, the memory dawned in her mind.

8.

A shellacked portrait of Jesus Christ—that popular rendering where he’s clean shaven and appears to be posing meekly for his senior high school yearbook, circa 1978—hung crooked over the kitchen sink.

Josephine Kagan removed the Stouffer’s entree from the microwave, peeled back the plastic cover, then placed it on the floor.

She’d lost her faith years ago.

“Alright, Jacob, eat up,” she barked with a grouchy fondness only the elderly can master. Jacob was a monkey-bat, a term she’d christened for the animals that had started prowling her house years ago, ever since Eli’s first window appeared on her basement wall.

Perhaps her son was right: she’d not lost her faith, but had simply misplaced it, given her failing memory. Not that he gave a shit.